Here is a good read on whats wrong with GM's giving out dumb contracts and how it affects other teams.

See Bollands contract it goes right back to the point that Sobotka is not worth 4MIL, that said Berg is not worth 3.7Mil bad Army bad. Kane is not worth 10.5mil but is someone on our team going to demand a huge pay raise just if they played comparable to Kane? By comparable I mean Steen, Backes, Osh, Schwartz(who all have the potential to put up numbers like kane)

Armys game of paying guys what they are worth for a reasonable lenghs, is a dying thing just be glad he can still do it now alot of teams are going to be bitten in the ass when these guys dont play up to what they are being paid or fall off early in a stupid long contract. Army may lose 1 or 2 along the way doing contracts like he is but I honestly think the team will benifit in the long run from it.

All the back and fourth with Sobotka no one knows what was really on his mind except him. Maybe it didnt even matter what we offered, maybe he had his mind made up. Part of me thinks that his ex-agent was probally using the KHL thing against Army and so Army decided to take it to arbitration, but its all just speculation untill it comes straight from Sobotka.

Sobotka's numbers and production might push him more towards a 3rd line/4th line assignment but nobody, absolutely NOBODY played with as much heart as him. Period. Boat had the team's pulse and that's all there is to it. You knock him down, you put him down, he got back up. People say Morrow is a warrior, but there ain't no other player on this team that's more a warrior than the Boat and that has to inspire his teammates and sets the bar for others. Really hoping he comes back to us soon.

With that said, How can anyone...anyone...defend us re-signing Ott? Oh wait, we need Centers, okay gotcha, but with that said....

2013 - 2014 0G/3A/-122012 - 2013 9G/11A -262012 - 2013 9G/15A -3

THIS IS WORTH 2.6M A YEAR? ON WHAT PLANET?

We could get an AHLer to do this much for league minimum. But we paid 2.6m for the throw-in for Ryan Miller.

Sobotka was not going to be a top 6 forward on the Blues and nor should he be.

You're right about the role being an issue and this assertion may be right. But to give the full context: Armstrong said Backes would go back to the wing after we signed Stastny and Lehtera. So it seems the front office and a lot of fans are absolutely convinced Sobotka isn't a top-6 C, which may well be true, but that Jori Lehtera (0 NHL minutes) DEFINITELY is a top-6 C. Just let me know guys, do I have that right? Hands up, who has actually seen Lehtera play more than twice?....

No matter what Lehtera does (win the Calder, flame out, get homesick and return to Europe during pre-season), Sobotka wouldn't and shouldn't get top 2 line minutes. Either Lehtera plays well enough to justify moving Backes to wing and Oshie to line 3...or he doesn't and they don't, which would leave: line 1 Steen-Backes-Oshie and 1A Schwartz-Stastny-Tarasenko. Who on that list would you play Sobotka ahead of?

of 1444 NHL players over the past 5 years, Ott ranks 1381st in Corsi For. You can put together over 60 teams of 23 skaters with better players than Ott has been.

I'd give you a link to a great point someone made recently, but honestly can't remember who or if it was specifically about Ott or not. But basically it said, tough gritty players like Ott are always said to be "tough to play against.' This of course is not true. Since the point of hockey is to score more goals than your opponent, players who help your team do that are the ones who are tough to play against. Toews and Bergeron are tough to play against, Ott sucks at hockey.

of 1444 NHL players over the past 5 years, Ott ranks 1381st in Corsi For. You can put together over 60 teams of 23 skaters with better players than Ott has been.

I'd give you a link to a great point someone made recently, but honestly can't remember who or if it was specifically about Ott or not. But basically it said, tough gritty players like Ott are always said to be "tough to play against.' This of course is not true. Since the point of hockey is to score more goals than your opponent, players who help your team do that are the ones who are tough to play against. Toews and Bergeron are tough to play against, Ott sucks at hockey.

The irony in all of this is that while Otts Corsi is awful, the man who developed the system is sitting here in the organIzation obviously being ignored. And for all our complaining and providing alternates (Porter, McRae, Fabbri, Paajarvi) the sad truth is that for that kind of scratch on a one way contract, Otts not going anywhere or losing his job.

I just keep hoping that our re-signing of Steve Ott was all a dream. It's still not. Boo.

I just can't fathom anyone defending the guy after the season he had for us. Everything he was said to bring: 'grit,' 'sandpaper,' 'heart,' 'never quit,'....I didn't see any of that on a regular basis. In fact, the one game I attended with Steve Ott as a Blue (April 5 against the Avs, the 5-0 blowout that started our 0-6 run to end the season), I saw Ott give up on multiple plays that resulted in goals. Oh and his 'grit' and 'sandpaper' elements resulted in him chirping and earning useless penalties.

I don't normally dislike players, I usually give them the benefit of the doubt, but Ott wasn't what he was advertised to be at all.

Call me slightly psychotic, but perusing through the remaining available free agents I couldn't help but notice former really good center Scott Gomez. Even in his diminished state, it couldn't have hurt to give him a 2 way contract and fight for a bottom 6 spot. I get that he's a shell of his former self, but Ott is just a shell.

One thing no one has so far touched on: How are we going to sign Schwartz when we don't have much cap left thanks to the necessary signings of Berg and the Otter?

Scott Gomez would be a major, major upgrade over Ott. I'd even go so far as to interview Mike Riberio simply because the guys skills are Quality and he is a legit center, it's the rest of him that bothers me. Just...if were going to replace Boat is there any more disrespectful way of doing it than with Ott? How are we that desperate to sign him in such a knee - jerk reaction? We wouldn't give Boat an extra 300k but we gave Ott 2.6?

We shouldn't even take a flyer on ribs. The word on the street is alcohol, heroin, coke, and hookers. While he had skills, recent pictures don't look like an athlete so much as an addict. No thank you.

One thing no one has so far touched on: How are we going to sign Schwartz when we don't have much cap left thanks to the necessary signings of Berg and the Otter?

Scott Gomez would be a major, major upgrade over Ott. I'd even go so far as to interview Mike Riberio simply because the guys skills are Quality and he is a legit center, it's the rest of him that bothers me. Just...if were going to replace Boat is there any more disrespectful way of doing it than with Ott? How are we that desperate to sign him in such a knee - jerk reaction? We wouldn't give Boat an extra 300k but we gave Ott 2.6?

Some decent quotes here. I'm still not happy with the signing, but knowing he's already working hard and that he wants to be here is encouraging. I won't write him off entirely, but I also don't want this to be a Chris Stewart situation where he always says the right thing but the payoff isn't anywhere close.

Steve Ott has scored 103 goals in the NHL but when he opens the 2014-15 season with the Blues, he’ll be looking for his first with the organization.

After arriving from Buffalo in a trade last February, Ott played in 29 games with the club. But despite playing some on the top line, he failed to notch a goal.

“I think he’s going to want to get that first goal as much as we’re going to want him to get that off his back,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “He was in a lot of scoring chances. He, like our team, had difficulty finding the back of the net.”

But scoring is not necessarily Ott’s forte, or why the Blues brought him back last week —signing the unrestricted free agent to a two-year, $5.2 million deal.

The team needed a versatile veteran forward, after learning last week that Vladimir Sobotka had elected to play next season in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League.

Despite some interest from around the NHL, Ott still was available and perhaps that was done by design, as the 31-year-old was holding out hope that the Blues might come calling.

“I wanted to go to St. Louis,” Ott said. “That was my No. 1 spot. I told my agent, ‘Listen, let’s make this work any which way we can.’ My heart was already locked up with St. Louis. I’m happy that my family and myself, we’re where we wanted to be. That was my No. 1 thing, to be a Blue again.”

Despite Ott’s bland finish to last season, in which he had a minus-15 rating in those 29 games, Armstrong circled him as the one player headed for unrestricted free agency that the club hoped to retain.

But despite conversations with Ott’s agent, Howard Gourwitz, the Blues couldn’t work out an agreement.

Ott was seeking a longer-term deal than the team was offering. Then the club signed Joakim Lindstrom, added Paul Stastny and Jori Lehtera in free agency and continued to negotiate with Sobotka.

Suddenly, the spots were filling.

“I talked to Steve when the season ended about wanting to come back here,” Armstrong said. “We weren’t able to get to a conclusion before free agency and we both said, ‘Stay in touch.’ You never know what’s going to happen in free agency. We were exploring how we can improve our team and he was exploring things. We were both very comfortable to reconvene.”

The re-connection came quickly when Sobotka followed through on a signal that he might play in Europe.

“We were continuing to update each other and where each others’ camps were,” Ott said. “There was a lot of talk going back and forth. We’ve been open and ‘Army’ has been so first-class, it just made things extremely easy. My first option was to win, and even in competitive markets out West (that showed interested), it still didn’t feel right.”

Meanwhile, the Blues felt fortunate he still was on the market 10 days after the start of free agency.

“If he had signed on July 1st or July 2nd, we would have been out,” Armstrong said. “I know the last few days he was talking to more teams again. Sort of my experience, the first 48 hours is a frenzy and then you go into a lull and then the dust has settled and everybody gets back to work. I think Steve was at that top-end of the players that were still available and teams were circling back with him and we were one of them.”

Ott laughed when told that Armstrong had talked about wanting for him to score his first goal with the Blues. In 23 regular-season games after the trade, he had just three assists. In six playoff games, he managed two assists.

“To be honest with you, I wasn’t at 100 percent,” Ott said. “I don’t think I gave a true look at what I can bring the team yet. Call it nerves or being in that situation for the first time coming into a new team ... just all those things add up. I was nowhere near my expectations.”

Ott was also dealing with a shoulder injury and a sports hernia that required offseason surgery shortly after the Blues were eliminated from the playoffs.

The surgery was successful, and he’s resumed his full routine.

“I’m skating like crazy and working out like crazy,” Ott said. “(The sports hernia) was bothering me for the last few months, and it’s just nice to know that I’m all fixed up. I can already tell, such a tremendous difference in the gym and when I’m skating. I take a big onus on myself to come in and have a big year this year.

“I’m sure you’ll see a little bit of a different player. I can’t wait to start with a fresh, clean slate going into camp and continue to get comfortable, rather than the situation that presented itself last year.”

Ott’s road to becoming a Blue again was a meandering one, but both sides are glad they ended up together.

“We brought him here for a reason,” Armstrong said. “He’s a really strong utility player. I think we all saw what type of competitor he was in the playoffs. It’s really important to have that type of grit and determination in our lineup ... I like the make-up of our team, and I like having a little bit of sandpaper in there.”

I guess it's "good" to know Ott was battling two injuries all of last season when he was with the Blues. Add that together with his generic "nerves" talk and who knows, maybe we'll get a good return on him this year. Ott has to know he's playing for his continued NHL career at this point. Any more of that no goals and -15 crap and he'll be out of work in very short order.

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